Tag Archives: summer

Great Lost Summer Hit 3

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ROONEY – ‘When Did Your Heart Go Missing’

So it’s the last week of August. In the UK we’ve had our warmest brightest summer since 2003, we’ve retained the Ashes, a British man has won Wimbledon for the first time since God knows when. But I can’t be the only one for whom this week brings a tinge of regret, a feeling of what might have been if only…

Time to reach for this record.

Rooney were (perhaps still are?) five pretty Californian boys with good hair who caused a brief flurry of interest around 2003 with their Strokes-meets-the Beach Boys debut album. Then there was nothing until this single from their second effort Calling The World, released this week in 2007. With its itchy guitar figure, gormless rhyming of ‘princess’ with ‘justa one big mess’, and that he-cannot-be-serious spoken word outro it’s a micrometre from toppling over into outright cheese. But it doesn’t. Because there’s something heartfelt and real at the centre of this song, a romance that had so much potential but yet somehow conspired to fall apart despite the singer’s best efforts. Sigh. We’ve all had one of those, haven’t we?

It’s been seen with this video, which made me laugh out loud when I first saw in a bar on  holiday in Barcelona six years ago this month.

Needless to say, it wasn’t a hit. But I always play it around this time the year, because it just reeks of the last week of August, a time to look back with fondness and regret, when you appreciate every day of good weather, so desperate are you to eek every last drop out of the summer. Because all that lies ahead is darkness, loneliness, bitterness and gloom.

Happy winter.

PS: I wonder if  any Man U-loving promoter has ever tried to get Rooney, Keane and the hard rapper Giggs on the same bill?

Great Lost Summer Hit 2

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POCKET SIZE – ‘Walking’

This single landed on my desk at the Big Issue sometime during early June 1999. I left it unplayed for several weeks before digging it out one idle afternoon the following month. And guess what? It sounded just perfect for that specific time on that specific day, a lazy dog day afternoon during the last week of July.

Pocket Size were vocalist Liz Owers and multi instrumentalist Darren Pearson. They were one of those groups you don’t really get these days – signed by a major without having built up any sort of following or profile in the hope that, well, something would happen. Walking was released and nothing happened. It’s a fine tune, kinda country-ish, languid but playful and cool; a record that doesn’t draw attention to itself. Unfortunately in a summer when the charts were dominated by post-Spice Girls kiddy pop, latin-influenced dance music and pop trance its coy charms didn’t stand a chance. I’m not even sure if the accompanying album 100% Human was even ever released. If it was, we certainly didn’t get a copy of it.

 

 

 

Great Lost Summer Hit 1

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So…last year I wrote a post bemoaning the disspearance of the British summer. As you can have expected I have been pinching myself during this last week or so. It’s utterly flabbergasting. We have not had an extended period of hot dry weather like this in the UK since 2003 and I am revelling in it, lapping it up, knowing that it could well be another ten years before we enjoy anything like this once again.

And it’s sent me back to records like this, the sort that only make sense in the sunshine. Le Kid are a Swedish five piece who have had some success in their home country and Germany, but haven’t as yet had the big push in the UK. Mercy Mercy was first released back in 2009 and then again the following year, both times kinda halfheartedly, with zero promotion and no airplay that I can recall. I’m stumped as to why this hasn’t already been a massive summer hit. Listen to it three times and you’ll never be able to shake the chorus from your head. It’s that good.

And yes it does sound a bit like Girls Aloud’s ‘Can’t Speak French’. But it’s better, miles better.